The Basement
by Punkroes
Summary: Alternative universe story of how James and Lily Potter started dating.


**Alternative universe James and Lily Potter story written from Lily's point of view. I don't own Harry Potter.**

Dear Whoever-you-are,

This is the story of James and I at the winter ball. I hope you find it as amazing as I did.

I'd been off school for two weeks, working at a small cafe. I was a further week away from being unemployed when my predecessor came back from having her baby. James Potter had sent me an owl inviting me to a winter ball a week ago. His parents held a winter ball each year for a charity they were patrons of; muggles weren't invited. A live band would be playing though so it sounded like a good night.

I got there when it was almost over, because I hate parties. If I had my way I would have spent the night upstairs reading with my cat. In the corner he stood staring into a glass of something, swishing it around without drinking. This dark look on his face like something was bothering him. I thought he was like the rest. Like me. Another clueless person who had absolutely no desire to be there.

James Dementor-buggerer Potter.

I was in for a treat.

—

He was actually there.

He told me he hadn't been to a winter ball in three years. Probably longer. He always said he was busy, and I believed him. I didn't want to be there either. But my parents had shoved me out of the car and told me to start making 'contacts'.

"James?" He turned around like he was surprised anyone noticed him there. I waved timidly. Normal so far.

"Hi. Some party, huh?"

"Hi, Lily!" he smiled like he always did when he saw me, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. He was kinda cute. Nice smile, annoyingly perfect teeth. Thousand galleon robes.

"You having fun so far?" It came out sounding like I didn't care about the answer, and to be honest, I don't think I did. I crossed my arms looked around the ballroom at all the other party goers, the ones who were left, the wizards and witches who'd shown up.

"Yeah, I'm having a pretty good time," he told me, but the look on his face made a liar out of him. He was looking in his drink like there was another galaxy in there.

"Yeah right," I scoffed, and spoke without thinking. "A third of the wizards have gone home, nobody brought any decent party tricks, and Dan the 7th year Hufflepuff stole all the Fire Whiskey."

"Yeah, he cornered me earlier and started talking about life after school," James started suddenly, "and then I realized the bottle was gone."

I stared at him. "Where did you put it? Did you give it to Minky for safe keeping?" I had to laugh and shake my head. "Rookie move. Should have hidden it down in the basement."

"How many do you have?" Back to the small talk.

"House elves? None. You know I'm a muggle born. I have to do everything without magic until we turn 17, remember?" I touched his arm as I spied a break in the crowd and lead him to the bar table.

"I forget sometimes. Your life away from school sounds riveting" he deadpanned, and I actually rolled my eyes. If one more wizard said my life must be a 'dream' I was going to slap them.

"I'm being sarcastic, by the way," he added as I glanced at him. "I hate cleaning up after myself."

I smirked as I went through the slim pickings left at the bar. I poured some mead. It was fucking awful, so I handed him the bottle without looking. I wondered if anyone would notice if I left.

When I looked back at him, he was staring into his glass again, like there wasn't even a party. His face was dark, like he'd just heard bad news. Like he was trying to work something out. I actually felt sorry for him for a moment, at least enough to actually get him some Fire Whiskey.

"Shall we go and find some Fire?" I ventured quietly. It was out of the blue, but it brought him out of his drink. "In the basement?" I reminded him at his confused look.

All of a sudden he looked at me like he'd just realized I was there. Maybe a little too long. I waited for him to be overly polite and tell me to go away. Instead he actually thought about it.

"Sure, yeah, let's find the bottle." I did a double take when I realized he was serious. Then I gave up trying to analyze him, and lead him downstairs.

—

The basement was quiet this time of night. James' father, Fleamont, used the room for inventing during his free time. I placed my glass in front of his cauldron as James started fiddling with a substance left on the surface of the desk.

"I've seen your father down here at work sometimes. He's a mean inventor," I smiled in explanation as I turned to unlock the storage cupboard door, and let James head down first. I shut it behind us to keep anybody from finding us, before second-guessing putting my glass down. Somebody would inevitably come down and find it.

The next part of the story will sound like the stupidest thing anyone has ever heard, but I swear to non-existent God it happened. I turned around and grabbed the handle but the door didn't open. These old doors took a little pushing though, so I turned it as hard as I could.

And the thing fell off in my hand.

It was one of those moments when there's really nothing left to say. I stood there motionless for a moment, holding the stupid thing. James was halfway down the stairs and he stopped in his tracks when he saw it. This was the type of shit that only happened on TV.

"Wow. So that just happened," I said to no one in particular. Something inside the handle had snapped clean off, so there was no way to get it back on. We spent fifteen minutes trying to find some way out - fiddling with the inside of the lock, banging, yelling, disturbing the mice scuttling on the floor, trying to call Minky but nothing worked. I considered trying to break the door but it didn't seem like the best parting gift for a guest to leave. It was a perfect storm of random circumstance, and now I was stuck in a windowless storage cupboard with the person I wanted leaste to be stuck with.

Fucking brilliant.

"This isn't actually happening," I told him as I walked down the stairs. He'd given up way before me and taken to sulking in the corner. "You live here. There has to be some way of contacting someone upstairs."

My mind wandered for a moment. I realized I wanted to stay here only marginally more than I wanted to die trying to attract help that would never arrive.

"You just started staring off into space. Please," he added, his voice slightly pleading, "tell me you had a revelation about how to get out of here."

I choked out a laugh. Of course. He doesn't know how to get out. He's probably never been in here before. "Why, you have somewhere to be?"

"The bedroom I haven't seen for two weeks," he sighed, lifting his drink to his lips like he was about to down it. He stopped at the last minute like he thought better of it. I guess he was rationing out the gold.

I looked at the mess around the storage cupboard and sighed heavily. It wasn't too bad a situation. It was quite large and there was the lumpy old couch wedged under the stairs. A couple of boxes - ingredients, probably. And the most important part, the drinks shelf. The thing smelled like bubotuber pus but still had a few bottles left. I took some Butter Beer and the last bottle of Fire.

"Those people upstairs don't know I'm alive," I told James, pressing the Fire bottle to his chest. "They're sure as fucking hell not going to notice me disappearing from a party. And the only other person here is you."

He put his hand over the bottle, and over my hand too, for a moment. The idea was to pull it away, but when I tried my hand didn't want to move. My eyes didn't want to stop looking at him either. I don't know if I pulled away in time to ease the awkwardness. This whole situation was awkward.

"Wait, are you fucking serious?" he joked. He was still holding his glass in front of him like I was about to introduce him to someone. He was out of luck unless he wanted to meet the wall.

"Congratulations," I deadpanned. "You're locked in a room with the worst person at the party."

"You weren't the one who spent twenty minutes telling me about the income potential of werewolf farming."

"I'm one rank above the finance guy," I mumbled to myself as I checked the cupboards to see if there was any actual food. I found exactly one box of apples and some biscuits. Thank god neither of us was diabetic.

When I turned around, he was staring at me, still holding the bottle. I was sure he had nice eyes now. Maybe it took some time looking at them to know, I regularly ignored him in school. There are times when someone staring at you is awkward, and times when it's not - when the silence, for whatever reason, is nice. And so he kept staring at me, his finger tapping on his glass, his eyes big and dark and kind, like he was searching my face for some kind of answer. I got the feeling I wasn't meant to like it, even though I did.

"What?" I asked him, and he suddenly looked down at his drink. And up again. The looking isn't what gets to you when someone stares. It's the looking back.

He stared at me for a second longer, and narrowed his eyes. "What the hell is a 'finance guy'? "

I closed mine. Goddamn it. This was going to be a long night.

—-

The couch made a horrible sound as I dragged it into the center of the room. We'd been locked down there for an hour and it seemed I was right - nobody noticed we'd left. At best, we had six hours to go until one of the elves came down to clean in the morning. Six hours of this guy I wasn't sure I liked yet.

I heard another scraping sound from behind me. James had actually put down his drink to drag two boxes over as a makeshift table. I had to admit, I was starting to warm to him. Something completely random was happening and he was just rolling with it.

It was probably the whiskey.

"I guess one of us can sleep on it," I sighed, gesturing to the couch. "And there's apples and biscuits up there." I gestured to the cupboard above his head.

"Biscuits with slugs on them," James added, opening the box, and I laughed

"Ah. Well it is a potions store cupboard," I smiled, settling into the couch. I cradled the Butter Beer bottle in my hands and looked around. There was a sink in the corner.

"The tap might work if we hit it hard enough," James had started poking around the stuff under the stairs.

"So how long until someone finds us?"

"Eternity." He found an old office chair and pulled it over. We had a nice little fake living room going. He raised his eyebrows and I actually had to laugh at the look on his face.

"Relax," he sighed, shutting his eyes. "The elves come down here before we do. 6am, tops."

"Well if you want to sleep, tell me and I'll just shut the fuck up."

I checked my watch. It was already after midnight. He had opened his eyes again and was staring into his drink again, swishing it around. There was only a sip left and he hadn't touched the bottle on our fake table. It was the same look he'd had before, when I approached him. Like something was bothering him and the last place he wanted to be to sort it out was a party.

"You don't really want to be here, do you?" I tried to ask it as nicely as possible. When he didn't answer for a moment, I started reading the back of the Butter Beer bottle. Made at the Leaky Cauldron. I went there last summer. Hot as balls

"Locked in a basement? Not completely." He swirled his drink one more time and finally finished it. The eyes, and the smile when it was there, and the perfect teeth. He was cute, if you didn't think about it. He looked up and I stared him down, not buying the joke, so he went on.

"Mother told me I hadn't been to one of these things in five years," he sighed, putting his drink on the table. Hands. He had nice hands, too, as he gestured upstairs. "This whole thing was started by-"

"Your parents." Now I understood. He shot me a look when I said it, like I wasn't meant to understand. Like I didn't have a family of my own who thought I was weird. You never want to see-

"Mummy gave me that look people get when they're really fucking disappointed." Wow. He'd almost finished the sentence in my head. "And asked what happened to me. So I just walked off like a coward."

We sat there in silence for a while. I think we both understood. He was the one who broke it, putting his glass down on a pile of boxes. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"I'm a captive audience who knows that families suck." I said it without thinking and wanted to take it back, but he just smirked a little. My hands wanted to feel busy, so I walked to the stairs and grabbed onto the box on top of the pile. He rescued his liquid gold just in time.

"I saw blankets in here earlier," I explained. He tried to take it the box from me but I held on tight. "It's winter. We'll freeze in here."

"Why don't we start a fire?" he quipped, sounding exactly like Sirius Black. I held my hands up and let him thunk the box back where I found it.

"Where I'm from, if you're stuck in a concrete box in winter, you freeze to death," I pointed out.

"Alaska?" I actually rolled my eyes. He was smiling at me, but I'd almost had enough of his sense of humor.

"London." I drank some more beer and thought for a second. "This is the North. It's even colder up there."

He poured himself another glass and shrugged. I wondered how many more before he'd fall over or kiss me. Wait. Kiss me? I didn't want him to kiss me. Too much beer.

"I've lived here all of my life?" He actually had to think about it. "Barely ever gets close to school."

"Jesus Christ, you're old." He started laughing before I'd even finished the sentence. Maybe he wasn't too far off.

"So how the hell did you end up here?" When I met his eyes it was like he actually wanted to know the answer. I held his gaze for a little too long, wondering when he was going to tell me what the staring was all about.

"You invited me, remember? And my parents wanted me to make 'contacts'," I started, choosing my words carefully. I always had to do that when explaining things. I was enough of a loser without the boring back story.

"And you came here?" I looked at him and we both smiled in the pause.

"Yeah, well, it was this or sit through another of my sister's Christmas plays, so I had to invest in my future away from school." I grabbed the ugliest apple from the cupboard. James had arranged them at some point into the Jenga building of green apples.

"So how much do you people know about me?" he asked idly. He carefully replaced the apple with another one and grinned when the headquarters of Apple Jenga didn't fall over.

I flopped down on the couch and fired off what I knew through a mouthful of cookie. "Rich. Famous dad. Spoiled rotten." I said it just to laugh at the look on his face. "Youngest Potter currently alive. And now…"

He looked up when I trailed off, thinking about what I was going to say next. I wanted to be nice, and sometimes I have to think when I do that. But his eyes caught me off guard, the half smile on his face, studying me. I wondered what made me so interesting.

"I think you've most likely got other things going on and I don't blame you for not coming to stupid parties," I managed. He kept his eyes on me as he reached for his drink. What bothered me was I didn't actually mind.

"Yeah," he sighed, pouring himself some more. "You know I haven't had a day of rest since we got home for the holidays? I have every hour scheduled by my parents on this stupid calendar and I barely have time to check if my owl is still alive. I just want to rest before we go back to school. And it's not a stupid party," he added.

He sighed as he said it, like maybe he actually worked too hard. I could believe it. He had bags under his eyes, lines. Hands that wouldn't sit still. Part of me wondered how he ever relaxed, if he relaxed.

I breathed in and before I knew it, I was pouring it all out. "Well I worked hard too. I actually left the Express and went straight to my winter job. Instead of making a difference I'm cleaning up after people because the older staff can't be bothered." I was actually starting to get annoyed now - that general annoyance at everyone and everything that comes from too much alcohol. At least for me.

"C'mon, you're making a difference to me," he pointed out, and I got up and walked to the sink. It wasn't that he was annoying me, or that I didn't like him, or wanted to be out of here. It was the opposite. I didn't want any of those things, and that annoyed me even more.

"You're not an idiot." I was probably snapping now, the words pouring out. I turned around, leaned against the sink, stared him down. "You have talent, and passion, and drive. And I've probably just lost a good reference by being the idiot who got you stuck down here. Don't try and tell me you don't have any talent, we both know you do. And don't let your mother make you feel guilty for working hard."

By the time I turned back to the sink I was fucking convinced I was an idiot. What the hell was I thinking? A half-confession, half-insult fueled by Butter Beer. I obviously wasn't thinking. I tried turning the tap on just to break the silence. It sputtered and gurgled but nothing came out. There was a joke in there somewhere.

"You know, I don't think you're an idiot," he said thoughtfully. He paused for a second and I glanced at him, glancing at me. "I mean, I'm still trying to figure out if us being locked in here is some kind of game and I just don't know the password, but you're smart enough to take care of everything. I fucking live here and I don't even know how to get out."

I looked back at the sink, at my nails holding onto it, and tried to stop smiling. 'Not an idiot'. It sounded nice when it came from him. Like he actually meant it. And I hadn't missed the part about the game either. I busied myself twisting the taps all the way up to max as the sink creaked.

"The safety word is banana," I quipped over my shoulder, and he actually spat out his drink.

"What?" he spluttered, and I laughed so hard it echoed throughout the basement.

"It's a quote from TV."

I heard him walking, and when I turned from the sink he was standing next to me, and I felt the smile disappear off my face. In a good way. His eyes were dark, and kind, the type you could get lost in if you let yourself go. He smelled like whiskey and fresh laundry. I could feel his hand inches away from mine on the side of the sink, and I wondered what would happen if I kissed him. I wasn't meant to wonder, but it didn't seem like we were closer now. Simple class mates don't stare like this. They don't even talk.

He'd moved ever so slightly towards me, to do…something, when the sink creaked loudly and made me jump. It spluttered one more time and water finally came pouring out. I looked back at him, still close as ever. We were both smiling.

"Eureka," he said quietly. He filled up his glass and went to the couch, leaving me wondering what had happened.

—-

The next two hours felt like five.

We didn't say much after we got the water on. We both added some of it to the alcohol floating through our systems. I finally got to the nail polish off my fingers. James tapped away on the boxes in a small attempt to amuse himself, I assume. Unfortunately, it seemed everyone at the party thought he'd just gone to bed, and nobody at my house would care if I didn't come home. I started to wonder if we'd ever get out of here.

He was the one who broke the silence, putting his shoes on the floor, drinking some water. It came totally out of left field: "You know, you should let me buy you a drink sometime."

"What, the entire free bottle of Fire isn't enough?" Crap. Something else borderline rude I'd said without thinking.

"No, I need at least three," he smiled back, taking a sip. Okay, maybe I wasn't that rude. "I'm serious, though."

I plonked my hands into my lap and raised my eyebrows at him. He couldn't be serious with the way I looked right now. In hindsight, I probably should have just asked him why, but me being me? I had to make it difficult.

"C'mon, you're going to ask me out just because we're stuck in the same room? Where's the challenge in that?" My voice wasn't as firm as I wanted it to be. Still, I hoped it covered up how much I actually wanted to say yes.

"An opportunity presented itself," he grinned, and I had to smile despite everything. "Besides, you're…"

I waited for the next word, hoping it was 'hot'. "What, hot?"

It's the very rare moment in life you get to find out what someone actually thinks of you. Even rarer when they're someone you usually ignore. What's probably the rarest thing in the whole world is the word that came out of his mouth.

"Interesting."

I felt a smile growing on my face as he looked at me. Interesting. But my smile faded when I realized it was probably all just talk. Just words people say in a confined space.

"It's probably a bad idea," I started. I think I was mostly trying to convince myself. "There's no universe where the two people like us have drinks. I'm totally fucked up and in two weeks we'll be back at school ignoring each other. I'm a muggle born. You really want to get involved with that? You're James fucking Potter."

I instantly knew telling the truth had been a bad idea. He stared at me for too long and went back to trying to finish his drink. He had that look on his face like I was far too many issues for him to bother dealing with. A look I'd seen a whole bunch of times before, so I pretended to read the bottle label again. Story of my life - I'd taken a guy who liked me and made him hate me for no reason at all.

His glass suddenly thumped down on our makeshift table. When I looked up he was staring at me like this was serious. Like we were already together.

"I haven't had a holiday since I was six. I have a gigantic house I never spend any time in. I have to owl the house elf twice a week to make sure my owl's still alive when I'm home. You think my life doesn't have it's fair share of bullshit?" He waved his hand dismissively. "I've dated the girls with the big houses and families like mine. It's not a picnic."

He got up with his glass and downed it as he wandered toward the bin leaning against the wall. I didn't really know what to say. He'd met every challenge. I wasn't even sure if I liked him at that point. Alcohol and confined spaces had messed up my head.

"You're just choosing me because you're locked in here," I challenged, standing up to be on his level. But at the same time I was shaking inside. It didn't make any sense that anyone would pick me over anyone else. He put his glass on the dryer and I walked up to him, waiting for the punchline. Instead he turned around and stepped closer to me than any stranger would.

"Maybe I'm asking you because you actually have something to say," he started. My heart was beating faster. "Or because you don't give a shit who I am or because you called me out on all of my pretentious rubbish."

I knew he could tell how quickly I was breathing. My head hadn't been making things up - not everything, at least. He wouldn't be this close to me, smelling like Fire and after shave, close enough to see the threads on his robes, if there wasn't something here.

"You should have come here earlier," he added, and suddenly his eyes fell to my lips. I tried to take a deep breath. I still hadn't decided if I was going to be that girl, the kind that kisses him. I hadn't even decided if I was the kind who liked him. Though maybe I had no idea who that kind was. Maybe it was me.

"Or maybe you're just drunk and I'm easy." The words slipped out before I had the chance to catch them. A defense mechanism. You mind tends to do strange things when someone is staring at your lips.

"That too," he mumbled, and suddenly he kissed me. One of those frenzied kisses that turns you on immediately, that sends fire right down to your toes. One of those times when you don't think, you act. He was the one who wrapped his arms around my waist - strong - and pulled me up to sit on the washing machine. But I was the one who opened my legs and kissed back. It wasn't my fault he smelled so good, that my hands were on his neck, that one of his was on my leg. It's just what happened.

"Wait, wait," I managed, and it almost physically pained me to hold him off, my hands on his chest. "Are we actually doing this?" I probably confused my answer by taking my dress off, but like I said, sometimes those things just happen.

"Fuck yes," he answered, and kissed me again. For some reason all I could think was I'd never had sex in a basement. That became untrue around the time his hands pushed up my dress down and my hands undid his belt.

What the hell, right? These things just happen.

—-

They finally found us at 6am.

One of house elves came in early to clean after the party when she noticed the drinking glass on the on the shelf. Eventually she tried the basement door and when she couldn't open it, she had called for Fleamont who eventually opened it with the tap of his wand. That's how James' dad in his pyjamas found me asleep on a couch, leaning on his son's shoulder.

Thank god he didn't have a camera.

James had ducked out of the room before me, still looking slum, and was halfway up the stairs when I called out to him. I found myself walking up to him in my sleep-deprived haze. The smarter thing to do would have been to let him walk away. In real life, as someone sang once, love doesn't let you.

"James!" He stopped in his tracks and turned around. I walked up to him as he turned around, and there we were, standing there, staring at each other again. Spontaneously I plucked some parchment off the floor.

"If you're going to message anyone, Sirius starts with S," he started, but I just scribbled down my address with the spare pencil I keep with me.

"My address is there," I said breathlessly, holding it out to him. "You can mail me in two days when I get home or earlier if you really need to. Your owl will deliver letters addressed to me," I added quickly. "I swear to god I didn't plan any of this."

He grinned at me and took the parchment, briefly looking at my address.

"Two days it is," he answered. He looked up from the parchment with that smile, a different one now. It actually reached his eyes.

"Okay." I found myself grinning now, but I forced myself to walk away.

"Okay then," I heard him add to my back, and I looked back to see him still smiling. To this day, I still haven't forgotten that smile.

—-

I honestly thought that was it. I had a habit then of thinking too much, so I imagined a lot of things. I thought there was no way he'd mail me in two days. I thought I wouldn't think about him at all. And I was certain he'd forget about me completely. I imagined all my thoughts were facts.

Turns out I didn't know anything. I had no idea how big a part he'd play in my life.

I had even less idea what was to come.

Reviews welcome! Thanks for reading. I'll upload a second chapter if this story is liked.


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